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Cantonese Cooking & Traditions

127 posts in this topic

I truely believe in Chi zai Guangzhou----, but isn't that because of the freshest of ingredients are available and the food is prepared in such a way as to keep to the Tao belief of things in the natural state? That the variety and cooking control add to the reputation of Cantonese cooking? Doesn't it mean that Sichuan or other regional foods are not less or better tasting, it's just that they are more complicated than the simple purity of the Southern regions?

but this is just pushing us toward the debate...that's why I hate cantonese food, its BLAND! Well, maybe not in Guangzhou, but I have a friend that insists on cooking cantonese here in the US, and to everything she cooks, I must add la jiao or jiang you or something so that it actually has flavor...

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but this is just pushing us toward the debate...that's why I hate cantonese food, its BLAND! ..... and to everything she cooks, I must add la jiao or jiang you or something so that it actually has flavor...

I think that, in the majority of cases, this judgement of taste comes from one's upbringing -- what one is used to. Unlike Hunan, Sichuan and other Chinese regional food, Cantonese food is known to be mild. So if you grew up eating hot and spicy food, you tend to think Cantonese food is bland. On the other hand, for those who grew up eating mild food, they tend to think Hunan/Sichuan/etc food is nothing but hot.

Likewise if I grew up in the Carribeans eating nothing but bananas, I may think the food from the rest of the world is no good and only bananas taste the best.

I read on a book once which said "hot" itself is actually not a taste. "Salty", "sour", "sweet" are tastes. But "hot" is just a mechanism to stimulate, excite your taste buds to boost their receptions to true tastes. So adding a little hot sauce to the food will make enhance the eater's perception to the food's taste. But when you eat something that's overly hot, your taste buds would become numb then you cannot disguish between different tastes any more.

My knock is that Cantonese cuisine is too complex (despite Jo-Mel's "simple purity"). There's a northern dictum-- stated or unstated-- that a stir-fry should have no more than two main ingredients; my wife sniffs at the "Happy Family" type dishes on some Cantonese restaurant menus, to take an extreme example.

Maybe the too-many-competing-ingredients character often found in Cantonese cuisine is what you meant by "show" (they carve birds from veggies in Sichuan too, after all).

Cantonese may extol the complexity of their cuisine, but one man's "complex" is another man's "confused."

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I guess everything is relative. Even in Cantonese food you can experience a variety of tastes in a simple menu of Pickled Mustard Green Soup, Steamed Ham and Chicken and Black Bean Ribs. Hardly bland.

But the 'simple purity' was just a description as compared to the depth of Sichuan cooking in which so many flavors are added.

Not being Chinese, I'm not locked into any region (as I am with my New England tastes). I rarely cook a Chinese meal that does not bring all the regions, plus textures and forms of cooking into play. I love them all!

Gary -- how do you figure that Cantonese is 'complex'?

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but this is just pushing us toward the debate...that's why I hate cantonese food, its BLAND! Well, maybe not in Guangzhou, but I have a friend that insists on cooking cantonese here in the US, and to everything she cooks, I must add la jiao or jiang you or something so that it actually has flavor...

I hope that you don't take one person's cooking (your friend's) and generalize it to conclude that all Cantonese food is bland. My in-law never cook her "Cantonese food" with any salt or sauce. Her version of Cantonese food tastes very bland to me too.

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I guess everything is relative. Even in Cantonese food you can experience a variety of tastes in a simple menu of Pickled Mustard Green Soup, Steamed Ham and Chicken and Black Bean Ribs. Hardly bland.

But the 'simple purity' was just a description as compared to the depth of Sichuan cooking in which so many flavors are added.

Not being Chinese, I'm not locked into any region (as I am with my New England tastes). I rarely cook a Chinese meal that does not bring all the regions, plus textures and forms of cooking into play. I love them all!

My choice of the word "complex" may have been too imprecise, and at the same time too kind. I mean something like "busy". Cantonese food may not be as complex in flavoring as Sichuanese food (once you get past the warhorses beloved of chiliheads) but often has a cast of too many characters, like a Robert Altman movie on a plate. You often are left wondering what all those critters are up to, and why are they there. This seems to be most often true of vegetable or seafood dishes.

I have to add the disclaimer that I have never been to Guangzhou, and my experience is primarily limited to Western US "high" Cantonese food (a whole book has been written about this "school", which I'm dying to read, but is, alas written in Chinese) and mid-range Hong Kong Chinese (with which I have separate issues).

Let the record show, however, that I have not used the word "bland" in reference to Cantonese cuisine, and I have never turned down a Cantonese-style meal.

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I hope that you don't take one person's cooking (your friend's) and generalize it to conclude that all Cantonese food is bland. My in-law never cook her "Cantonese food" with any salt or sauce. Her version of Cantonese food tastes very bland to me too.

In retrospect, I should have clarified things a bit...I was using my friend's cooking as an example, but for the most part, at home or in a restaurant, I find cantonese food to be a bit bland for my taste at times...That isn't to say that I would never eat cantonese food or even try to avoid it all the time, its just to say that if we must have this debate about regional cuisine, there will be many arguments for all regions foods. in any case, I don't think this is necessary to discuss, people from different regions will all have different viewpoints on what food is the best, the regional pride in China runs very deep.

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Food, like music, is all about the senses and taste. In music appreciation, one progresses from nursery ditties to campfire songs, to teenybop, to light rock and roll to heavy metal, etc. And, depending on your background and training, you might want to sample, and love, the blues, jazz, country or bluegrass. There are those of us whose tastes get refined as we go through life and come to appreciate the upper reaches of the musical universe, eg. the works of Puccini, Verdi, the three Bs, Stravinsky, Handel, Dvorak, etc., etc. The works of this class of people are called classics, for good reason. And these works endure.

My take on Szechuan food and all other heavily spiced and complicated cuisines is that it is the heavy metal of the Chinese food world, it is about as subtle as a sledge hammer. But judging by the popularity of rock and roll, people must like to be hit over the head with sledge hammers. (Btw I treasure each one of my 1000 vinyl albums of rock as much as I do my 1000 albums of other music. ) Cantonese food requires a more discriminating palate to appreciate the nuances and subtleties. Everytime I eat a Szechuan meal, I always think the question: "What is the cook covering up with the chilis and the spices?"

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one progresses from nursery ditties to campfire songs, to teenybop, to light rock and roll to heavy metal, etc

Maybe you did. Some of us go other routes.

the three Bs

Beatles, Brian Wilson, Britney?

Everytime I eat a Szechuan meal, I always think the question: "What is the cook covering up with the chilis and the spices?"

And you accuse us of lack of subtlety. Any decent Sichaun cook will use the spicing to complement and bring out the flavours of the ingredients. If all you are tasting is chilli then either it is bad sichuan cooking or bad tasting.

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And you accuse us of lack of subtlety. Any decent Sichaun cook will use the spicing to complement and bring out the flavours of the ingredients. If all you are tasting is chilli then either it is bad sichuan cooking or bad tasting.

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"Chinese Gastronomy" has a forward by Lin Yutang in which he says: "Tastes can be good or bad, instinctive or cultivated, ostentatious or sophisticated and restrained. Also there is personality about types of cuisine, about certain types of preferences. It varies like the music of composers."

The actual authors of the book don't mention Cantonese or Sichuan (or other regions, when they write about flavors, but they do speak of 'plain flavors' (bland, if you will) appearing simple because all the seasonings blended into it are undetectable. And about the amount of art that goes into bringing out the 'natural' taste. ----------They then go into 'complementary flavors' in which individual ingredients preserve their identity while complementing each other.

They go into it a little more deeply than that, but that seems to be the gist.

I think of two dishes -- Chicken Shreds with Yellow Chives - subtle flavorings but a wonderful classic dish. Is it any better than Twice Cooked Pork which asserts itself? Both different, but both dishes that I would enjoy equally because of those differences.

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The actual authors of the book don't mention Cantonese or Sichuan (or other regions, when they write about flavors, but they do speak of 'plain flavors' (bland, if you will) appearing simple because all the seasonings blended into it are undetectable. And about the amount of art that goes into bringing out the 'natural' taste. ----------They then go into 'complementary flavors' in which individual ingredients preserve their identity while complementing each other.

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Cantonese food in my opinion was always considered to be the most elegant, subtle and more important adaptable of the ethinic food of China.

This is appearent in the USA where it's not unusual to see Restaurants switching from Cantonese, to other types of more popular types of fashionable Chinese foods with no change in management.

The one thing we should all be thankful for is that the "Dim Sum" or "Yum Cha" that has become so popular for all it's variations, tastes and flavors is one of the few traditional Cantonese Foods now so popular in most cities where it's being served.

I feel that the "Cantonese Methods' of preparing Seafood, Soups and Banquet presentations in most ways are superior then those from anywhere else in China.

It's important to take into consideration that for many years the bounty of items from everywhere in China were often available only in "Hong Kong" where only the best were shipped reguarly. Things that were taken for granted in "Hong Kong" were not available in the local markets, such as "Shanghai Freshwater Crab", Finest Pork, Ducks, Geese, Chicken, Vegetables, Codiments, Spices or almost anything that was special or unique to any area.

These food items were incorperated into Cantonese Dishes and eventually into their regional presentations as immigration into Hong Kong increased. Since there was such a largesse of available ingredients in the marketplace even those types of foods aquired a Cantonese influence.

That's why I feel that many of the interpertations of many ethinic cusines both in China or exported all have some influence from the Hong Kong Cantonese enviorment that sutained the popularity of these different foods.

During the "Cultural Revolution" except for only a few establishments located in big cities and operated by the government mostly to accomodate visitors there were almost no restaurants available to serice the local populations except those who maintained mediocre menus and service providing mostly institutional type meals at moderate prices with limited hours of service.

Again it's important the every Cantonese establishment always provided, many types of codiments, oils and enhancers to every customer who wished to jazz up the meals being provided. This was during a period where oil, meats, rice and almost everything else was rationed on the mainland for every consumer.

Irwin

I don't say that I do. But don't let it get around that I don't.

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I am very uncomfortable with this whole debate period, but it just doesn't seem to die. I think this is just an issue of personal preference and there is no end in sight. If you brought together people from each province in China and asked them what they thought the best Chinese food is, I am sure that in every case they would answer with their province (or their "region"). As for complexity of cooking and flavors, this is another issue...Cantonese cuisine uses ingredients that are typically more expensive and "higher class" and thus there is a propensity of high-end Cantonese restaurants in China. I think this is part of the issue, I couldn't imagine many people going to a high end Sichuan (or for that matter Xinjiang) restaurant, because this is everyday food, it can be found everywhere and is good whether spending 5, 50, or 500 RMB. However, too often (from my experiences) Cantonese food, at least in cities outside of Guangzhou/HK is only good when you go to the higher end restaurants.

I don't know necessarily where I'm going with all of this, there are a couple of different paths to go down, but I'll just leave it at this...

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I agree with wesza that the availability of fresh and top-quality ingredients in Hong Kong in the past few decades, under its special circumstances, has a major contribution to making Cantonese cuisine so successful.

If you brought together people from each province in China and asked them what they thought the best Chinese food is, I am sure that in every case they would answer with their province (or their "region").

This seems to agree with what I said earlier about if I grew up in the Carribeans eating nothing but bananas, I may think the food from the rest of the world is no good and only bananas taste the best.

Cantonese cuisine uses ingredients that are typically more expensive and "higher class" and thus there is a propensity of high-end Cantonese restaurants in China. I think this is part of the issue, I couldn't imagine many people going to a high end Sichuan (or for that matter Xinjiang) restaurant, because this is everyday food, it can be found everywhere and is good whether spending 5, 50, or 500 RMB.

I don’t think this is true at all, what you said about Cantonese cuisine uses ingredients that are typically more expensive. You may be referring to those dishes found in Chinese banquets. If you walk in to a restaurant in Hong Kong, or here in the USA or Canada, you can find plenty of dishes similar to what you called “everyday food”, such as beef stir-fried with vegetables, beef stew in hot pots, chicken with black bean sauce, Hong Shao Do Fu, roast duck and barbequed pork, etc.. These ingredients are not considered expensive nor “higher class”.

However, too often (from my experiences) Cantonese food, at least in cities outside of Guangzhou/HK is only good when you go to the higher end restaurants.

I think the issue is, at least partially, when you and other fellow posters slammed on and said “Cantonese food is bland”, “all show and no taste”, you may be basing your broad judgment on a few limited Cantonese “bland chop suey” restaurants in the U.S., or a few what you considered as “high end” Cantonese “all show and no taste” restaurants in China, or the cooking done by a Cantonese friend. If you have the opportunity to spend some length of time living in Hong Kong and don’t be afraid to try the local Cantonese food, you may open up your mind a little.

I think Gary Soup would agree with me… take San Francisco for example, there are plenty of restaurants in or outside of SF China Town which offer excellent common “everyday Cantonese food” for less than US $5.00 a dish. They are good (in fact excellent) but nobody would consider them as “high end”. Have you ever tried dining in those places? Have you dined in Cantonese restaurants serving “everyday food” in Portland, Seattle, Monterey Park, San Jose, Los Angeles, Cerritos, Irvine, New York City, Boston, D.C., Philadelphia, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal? These cities, all outside of Guangzhou/HK, have fairly decent “low end” Cantonese restaurants. Yes, my personal experience.

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This seems to agree with what I said earlier about if I grew up in the Carribeans eating nothing but bananas, I may think the food from the rest of the world is no good and only bananas taste the best.

They are good (in fact excellent) but nobody would consider them as “high end”. Have you ever tried dining in those places? Have you dined in Cantonese restaurants serving “everyday food” in Portland, Seattle, Monterey Park, San Jose, Los Angeles, Cerritos, Irvine, New York City, Boston, D.C., Philadelphia, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal? These cities, all outside of Guangzhou/HK, have fairly decent “low end” Cantonese restaurants.

First, the bananas point...I am not saying you are wrong about this, but my point is that this will never be settled because it is impossible to find a consensus on this issue, and Chinese are intensely regional.

I have eaten in almost every one of those cities you mentioned and don't disagree that you can find good, everyday Cantonese food. I guess the focus of my post was on Cantonese food in China. In any case, the good Cantonese offerings in these places doesn't translate to me feeling that Cantonese is the best of all Chinese foods, nor does it show it to be the most simple or complex, it just offers me a good cheap meal...

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I grew up eating Cantonese food and it will always be my first preference. I also grew up in California and my tastes run toward Chez Panisse type "California" cuisine that highlights the natural flavors of food rather than buries it. I like other Chinese cuisines the way I also love certain classic, sauce-y French preparations, but not as my primary food. I think, for me, the linkage between my upbringing and love of more pure food preparations is a pretty straightforward one.

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Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China, where I live, is sugar central for the country. Over two-thirds of China's output of sugar is grown right here, making it one of the largest sugar production areas on the planet. I have a second home in the countryside and it is surrounded by sugar cane fields.

Much of this is produced by small time farmers, although huge Chinese and international companies have also moved in.

Also, sugar is used extensively in Chinese cooking, not only as a sweetener, but more as a spice. A little added to a savoury dish can bring out otherwise hidden flavours. It also has medicinal attributes according to traditional Chinese medicine.

Supermarkets have what was to me, on first sight, a huge range of sugars, some almost unrecognisable. Here is a brief introduction to some of them. Most sugar is sold loose, although corner shops and mom 'n pop stores may have pre-packed bags. These are often labelled in English as "candy", the Chinese language not differentiating between "sugar" and "candy" - always a source of confusion. Both are 糖 (táng),

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Chinese names given here and in the images are the names most used locally. They are all Mandarin Chinese, but it is still possible that other names may be used elsewhere in China. Certainly, non-Mandarin speaking areas will be different.

By the far the simplest way to get your sugar ration is to buy the unprocessed sugar cane. This is not usually available in supermarkets but is a street vendor speciality. In the countryside, you can buy it at the roadside. There are also people in markets etc with portable juice extractors who will sell you a cup of pure sugar cane juice.

I remember being baffled then amused when, soon after I first arrived in China, someone asked me if I wanted some 甘蔗 (gān zhè). It sounded exactly like 'ganja' or cannabis. No such luck! 甘蔗 (gān zhè) is 'sugar cane'.

The most common sugar in the supermarkets seems to be 冰糖 (bīng táng) which literally means 'ice 'sugar' and is what we tend to call 'rock sugar' or 'crystal sugar'. This highly refined sugar comes in various lump sizes although the price remains the same no matter if the pieces are large or small. Around ¥7/500g. That pictured below features the smaller end of the range.

Related to this is what is known as 冰片糖 (bīng piàn táng) which literally means "ice slice sugar". This is usually slightly less processed (although I have seen a white version, but not recently) and is usually a pale brown to yellow colour. This may be from unprocessed cane sugar extract, but is often white sugar coloured and flavoured with added molasses. It is also sometimes called 黄片糖 (huáng piàn táng) or "yellow slice sugar". ¥6.20/500g.

A less refined, much darker version is known as 红片糖 (hóng piàn táng), literally 'red slice sugar'. (Chinese seems to classify colours differently - what we know as 'black tea' is 'red tea' here. ¥7.20/500g.

Of course, what we probably think of as regular sugar, granulated sugar is also available. Known as 白砂糖 (bái shā táng), literally "white sand sugar', it is the cheapest at ¥3.88/500g.

A brown powdered sugar is also common, but again, in Chinese, it isn't brown. It's red and simply known as 红糖 (hóng táng). ¥7.70/500g

A few weeks ago I bought a copy of this cookbook which is a best-selling spin off from the highly successful television series by China Central Television - A Bite of China as discussed on this thread. .

The book was published in August 2013 and is by Chen Zhitian (陈志田 - chén zhì tián). It is only available in Chinese (so far).

There are a number of books related to the television series but this is the only one which seems to be legitimate. It certainly has the high production standards of the television show. Beautifully photographed and with (relatively) clear details in the recipes.

Here is a sample page.

Unlike in most western cookbooks, recipes are not listed by main ingredient. They are set out in six vaguely defined chapters. So, if you are looking for a duck dish, for example, you'll have to go through the whole contents list. I've never seen an index in any Chinese book on any subject.

In order to demonstrate the breadth of recipes in the book and perhaps to be of interest to forum members who want to know what is in a popular Chinese recipe book, I have sort of translated the contents list - 187 recipes.

This is always problematic. Very often Chinese dishes are very cryptically named. This list contains some literal translations. For some dishes I have totally ignored the given name and given a brief description instead. Any Chinese in the list refers to place names. Some dishes I have left with literal translations of their cryptic names, just for amusement value.

I am not happy with some of the "translations" and will work on improving them. I am also certain there are errors in there, too.

Back in 2008, the Chinese government issued a list of official dish translations for the Beijing Olympics. It is full of weird translations and total errors, too. Interestingly, few of the dishes in the book are on that list.

Anyway, for what it is worth, the book's content list is here (Word document) or here (PDF file). If anyone is interested in more information on a dish, please ask. For copyright reasons, I can't reproduce the dishes here exactly, but can certainly describe them.

Another problem is that many Chinese recipes are vague in the extreme. I'm not one to slavishly follow instructions, but saying "enough meat" in a recipe is not very helpful. This book gives details (by weight) for the main ingredients, but goes vague on most condiments.

For example, the first dish (Dezhou Braised Chicken), calls for precisely 1500g of chicken, 50g dried mushroom, 20g sliced ginger and 10g of scallion. It then lists cassia bark, caoguo, unspecified herbs, Chinese cardamom, fennel seed, star anise, salt, sodium bicarbonate and cooking wine without suggesting any quantities. It then goes back to ask for 35g of maltose syrup, a soupçon of cloves, and "the correct quantity" of soy sauce.

I spent the weekend in western Hunan reuniting with 36 people I worked with for two years starting 20 years ago. All but one, 龙丽花 lóng lì huā, I hadn’t seen for 17 years. I last saw her ten years ago. One other, 舒晶 shū jīng, with whom I have kept constant contact but not actually seen, helped me organise the visit in secret. No one else knew I was coming. In fact, I had told Long Lihua that I couldn’t come. Most didn’t even know I am still in China.

I arrived at my local station around 00:20 in order to catch the 1:00 train northwards travelling overnight to Hunan, with an advertised arrival time of 9:15 am. Shu Jing was to meet me.

When I arrived at the station, armed with my sleeper ticket, I found that the train was running 5 hours late! Station staff advised that I change my ticket for a different train, which I did. The problem was that there were no sleeper tickets available on the new train. All I could get was a seat. I had no choice, really. They refunded the difference and gave me my new ticket.

The second train was only 1½ hours late, then I had a miserable night, unable to sleep and very uncomfortable. Somehow the train managed to make up for the late start and we arrived on time. I was met as planned and we hopped into a taxi to the hotel where I was to stay and where the reunion was to take place.

They had set up a reception desk in the hotel lobby and around half of the people I had come to see were there. When I walked in there was this moment of confusion, stunned silence, then the friend I had lied to about not coming ran towards me and threw herself into my arms with tears running down her face and across her smile. It was the best welcome I’ve ever had. Then the others also welcomed me less physically, but no less warmly. They were around 20 years old when I met them; now they are verging on, or already are, 40, though few of them look it. Long Lihua is the one on the far right.

Throughout the morning people arrived in trickles as their trains or buses got in from all over China. One woman had come all the way from the USA. We sat around chatting, reminiscing and eating water melon until finally it was time for lunch.

Lunch we had in the hotel dining room. By that time, the group had swelled to enough to require three banqueting tables.

Western Hunan, known as 湘西 xiāng xī, where I was and where I lived for two years - twenty years ago, is a wild mountainous area full of rivers. It was one of the last areas “liberated” by Mao’s communists and was largely lawless until relatively recently. It has spectacular scenery.

Hunan is known for its spicy food, but Xiangxi is the hottest. I always know when I am back in Hunan. I just look out the train window and see every flat surface covered in chilis drying in the sun. Station platforms, school playgrounds, the main road from the village to the nearest town are all strewn with chillis.

The people there consider Sichuan to be full of chilli wimps. I love it. When I left Hunan I missed the food so much. So I was looking forward to this. It did not disappoint.